Nowadays, content is key to everything. It is the core of every good marketing plan. Influencers use it to build up their social presence and businesses use it to promote their brand. It is what you use to make you stand out from the crowd. One of the ways to put out your content is blogging. Now, why is it important to have a blog post and why does it matter? In this post, I will run through everything you need to know about blog posts and how to write a high-quality blog post.
A blog post is a space for content creators like yourself to utilise in publishing your insights, thoughts, and stories that resonate with you and your readers. In the business world, blogging is one of the types of content marketing that businesses of all sizes use to drive traffic, build awareness, credibility, conversion, and attract potential customers. Without blogs, you might get yourself into trouble with poor search engine optimization (SEO), lack of content for your socials to promote, lower chance of generating new leads and potential customers, and so on (the list goes on and on). In all honesty, some may find writing hundreds of words a dread, challenging, or even time consuming (I pleaded guilty as charged) that is why I am here to cover some tips to make your life easier by guiding you in writing high-quality blog posts.
One of the most common things that writers struggle with is to produce a good blog post that often leads to no activity. Here are 5 steps for you to follow in order to construct a good blog post:
The first step is always the hardest but once you have established what your ideas are, everything will slowly fall into place. To determine what direction for your blog post, think about what topic attracts you and you would like to write about. It is always great to write educational content for high-level content. One of the ways to visualize what your readers might like is to put yourself in their shoes. But remember to focus on your industry not yourself (even though it would be easier).
You can always ask yourself questions like:
If you’re still feeling stuck, you can visit HubSpot’s blog ideas generator as a great way to get started.
Once you have selected a topic for your blog, it is time to start brainstorming working titles. It is always better to have more options to choose in this scenario so you should at least come out with 5-10 different blog titles for every piece of content you have. I find it very helpful to get a second opinion from either a co-worker or a friend. Ideally, you would want your title length to be about 60 characters and studies have found that 38% headlines with bracketed information perform better than those without. Moz’s title tag preview tool is useful for you to see how your title will show up on the search engine results page. To optimize your SEO, use keywords at the start of your title.
Blog posts need structure. It is a crucial step in having a good blog post. The structure acts as a blueprint, it provides guidelines and direction to you as a content creator and your readers to make a confident decision or capture the message you’re trying to tell or whatever the designated outcome is to be. You want to leave a memorable impression to your readers, so they would want to come back for more. Templates are a great way to help kick start your process in structuring your blog post.
Writing can be a hard skill to have and even professional writers have the same struggle as we non-professional writers do. Writing hundreds of words is different to publishing hundreds of words. You should start off with a draft and I know, the first drafts are always messy and that is perfectly fine. Don’t panic just yet because drafting your ideas is just the starting point of the blogging process. When writing you want to keep in mind the grammar and style you use. Here are some writing tips to optimize your blog post:
Pro tips: A useful strategy for writers that struggle with the introduction, leave it to the end. This way it is not blocking your way in starting and by the time you’re done with your main content, you will have more insight to generate a good introduction.
‘I’m all for the scissors. I believe more in the scissors than I do the pencil’ – Truman Capote
It is the process to help remove the unnecessary and irrelevant that doesn’t support your main idea. In addition, it provides an opportunity for you to refine your wording and content for an impactful outcome. Editing that you have missed and refined your work to build credibility.
It is always nice to have a fresh set of eyes to go over your content to get a second view on your work, so have someone else have a read at what you’ve got.
You are now ready to hit the publish button and make your mom proud!
Now you’ve reached the end of this foolproof guide, you are ready to start writing your blog post and create content! To learn more about creating content and improving your business’s content marketing click here
